Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/47

36 alike of time, of danger, of flight, and of pursuit; remembering no more than if they had never been, alike the agony that was of the past, an4 the jeopardy that was still of the future. On the dauntless courage—the courage of Marathon that had revived in her—peril had frail and passing hold: and in the deep bosom of these untracked and classic woodlands all sense of mortal fear seemed lost in their profound peace, their nameless melancholy, their ethereal lulling charm. At last, as though smitten suddenly with the sharp iron of recollection, she moved from him, rose, and went from the great oak shelter where he lay.

"Love! love! What have I to do with love?" she murmured, as she leaned her arms on the broken slab of the old stone altar, and let her head droop downward on them. A flood of memories, a tide of thought rushed on her from the years of her past; on the impulses of a gratitude touched to the core by the fealty and devotion of his defence, she had let words escape her that pride had silenced, and weightier chains fettered for so long, that she would have taken her oath no pity for him would ever shake, no yielding in herself would ever lead her to revoke, the decree of severance from her for ever, which she had uttered unfalteringly on the